Bob, the cab driver

I just landed in San Antonio--after an extraordinary fifteen days in Georgia!

It was raining hard when Mike and I left Hartwell at three this morning for the Greenville airport, and he stood and watched through the glass as I passed through security.  I used my flight time to enjoy Oprah and Happinez magazines--gifts from Joy and Day.

The cab driver was a man named Bob from the Sudan.  "Welcome to San Antonio!" he said.  We talked all the way to my house.  Does he like his job?  No way.  "I was an aviation mechanic in Atlanta," he said, "moving to Phoenix, when I had a terrible accident in San Antonio.  A truck lost control and slammed me into a wall.  I was in San Antonio hospital for five months, lucky to be alive, thank God, but I can't pass the physical anymore to do my former work."

How did he come to San Antonio from Sudan? I wondered.  "Long story," he said.  He was a furniture maker in Sudan with 77 employees.  When he wrote negative stories about his government, he received a tax bill in the millions and was forced to leave.  He went to Libya and Egypt, but was followed and forced to get out of the region entirely--so he moved to the United States.

Here he was, physically compromised from a car accident, banished from his country and family, trying to make a life in San Antonio--and I wanted to ask him to be my friend.  I didn't ask, but I wanted to somehow make him feel as welcome here as he'd made me feel when I landed.

When we drove into my driveway, he was still cheerful.  "I love your beauty-full house and decorations!" he said.  "I love all your happy colors."